Oh. My. Fucking. God.

[Alex179]

I already knew.   A 13 year old really would not understand their sexuality enough for me to consider it fully consensual.    It is fucking disgusting also as a 13 year old really isn't developed enough physically, mentally or psychologically to be sexually active.   We have enough kids having kids already in this world.  Statistically, paedophiles are less likely to be rehabilitated than murderers and rapists.   They have a rehab rate of less than 1%, so it is unlikely that he changed.   Especially since he seems to not think it was wrong lol.

[Kosmonaut]

It's okay to fuck a 13 year old? 

Yeah.

edit: not all of them though, obviously.

[SovaNu]

i don't think 13 year olds in general should have sex. i dunno if such nymphettes as Lolita actually exist, if so and they really want it then sure why not. but in general kids that age are kids. too young. it's hard for me to know when one is generally supposed to be ready for sex when i'm not ready at age 25 but that's cuz i'm an autistic spaz.

i knew about Polanski but i didn't know the specifics, that sounds pretty fucked up if he fed her quaaludes.

[Peter]

You didn't know that? It was the first thing I ever heard about him

ditto.

Sounds like a quick way to get famous and launch your career.

[Peter]

Age of consent laws bother me, not because I'm torn up about all the 13-year-olds I'm missing out on fucking, but because we as a society are legislating that another group of people are incapable of something.  Saying that a 13-year-old can't consent to something is like saying a black man can't vote.  Sure, they can say "I consent" or they can turn up at a polling station and select a candidate, but as a society, we're determining by decree that neither of those acts will carry any legal weight.  At university, I was classed as a 'vulnerable' student due to my asperger's, which meant that people who worked with me had to have passed a police check, and it wouldn't be a big conceptual jump to go from being classed as 'vulnerable' to being classed as 'unable to give consent', in which case anyone who had sex with me would be a rapist, regardless of my feelings on the matter.

[Blasted]

It wasn't consensual though.

He drugged and raped her.

[Christopher McCandless]

I already knew.   A 13 year old really would not understand their sexuality enough for me to consider it fully consensual.    It is fucking disgusting also as a 13 year old really isn't developed enough physically, mentally or psychologically to be sexually active.   We have enough kids having kids already in this world.  Statistically, paedophiles are less likely to be rehabilitated than murderers and rapists.   They have a rehab rate of less than 1%, so it is unlikely that he changed.   Especially since he seems to not think it was wrong lol.

Until they treat paedophiles as ill and try to help them rather than ostracise them, they are not going to do much good with rehabilitation.

[Alex179]

I already knew.   A 13 year old really would not understand their sexuality enough for me to consider it fully consensual.    It is fucking disgusting also as a 13 year old really isn't developed enough physically, mentally or psychologically to be sexually active.   We have enough kids having kids already in this world.  Statistically, paedophiles are less likely to be rehabilitated than murderers and rapists.   They have a rehab rate of less than 1%, so it is unlikely that he changed.   Especially since he seems to not think it was wrong lol.

Until they treat paedophiles as ill and try to help them rather than ostracise them, they are not going to do much good with rehabilitation.

Some psychologists do treat it as a mental illness.   Almost all paedos were molested themselves, so it is a vicious circle of sorts.   They typically make less of the crime and try to rationalize their behavior. 

[Peter]

It wasn't consensual though.

He drugged and raped her.

Of course he raped her.  Legally speaking, any sex with her was rape.  The question is, did she want to have sex or was it forced on her?  The law makes no distinction, but I do.  If I was classed as 'unable to consent' and I took someone's offer of a glass of champaign and an ecstacy pill before having sex with them, that person would legally speaking have drugged and raped me even though I could have been perfectly willing from my own perspective.

Some critiques of the article:

Polanski’s crime was not statutory rape. According to the laws in California (and the rest of the Union), the victim has to be of a certain age before she can be considered able to voluntarily form a decision to have sex with an adult, at which point the incident can be classified statutory rape. If you sleep with a 13-year-old, you’re guilty of first-degree rape, just as if Polanski had used violence.

'Just as if he'd used violence,' which means he didn't use violence but it's rape anyway just because she's 13.

The genius judge in the case permitted Polanski to remain out on bail. The pedophile-rapist then fled the country for our alleged ally, France, where he has remained ever since. The French have great reservoirs of understanding for pedophile-rapists – as long as they committed their crimes in America.

Perhaps these great reservoirs of understanding are because, in America, a paedophile-rapist is just anyone who's fucked a 13 year old under any circumstances, and perhaps the genius judge let him out on bail because he knew the plaintiff wasn't a danger to society, however much the scare-mongers may disagree.

Unfortunately for us and our cross-Atlantic cousins, the British courts suffer from some of the same maladies as our own. And so, after permitting the pedophile-rapist to testify from France via video hook-up, London’s High Court found for the convict-plaintiff. The judges brought shame on themselves, the London High Court, and the United Kingdom, which has earned the reputation as the libel lawsuit capital of the world, where the judges consider no lawsuit frivolous – as long as the plaintiff is wealthy.

Although Beatte Telle refused to testify on Polanski’s behalf, she did publicly say that he had not touched her leg or even spoken to her in the restaurant, and had only stared, dumbstruck, at her. Apparently, her public statement did the trick for the alleged jurists.

Isn't it terrible when judges base their decisions on the available evidence rather than on hype and hysteria?  What would be a preferable system of justice?  Trial by axe?

[Christopher McCandless]

I already knew.   A 13 year old really would not understand their sexuality enough for me to consider it fully consensual.    It is fucking disgusting also as a 13 year old really isn't developed enough physically, mentally or psychologically to be sexually active.   We have enough kids having kids already in this world.  Statistically, paedophiles are less likely to be rehabilitated than murderers and rapists.   They have a rehab rate of less than 1%, so it is unlikely that he changed.   Especially since he seems to not think it was wrong lol.

Until they treat paedophiles as ill and try to help them rather than ostracise them, they are not going to do much good with rehabilitation.

Some psychologists do treat it as a mental illness.   Almost all paedos were molested themselves, so it is a vicious circle of sorts.   They typically make less of the crime and try to rationalize their behavior. 

Its the national attitude that needs to change, turning them into hate figures practically keeps the vicious cycle going. There is much more that could be provided helpwise, chemical castration on the NHS for example.

[Blasted]

I actually think he was more of an ephebophile than a paedophile.  Anyway, at one point I was more sympathetic to them - when I did an article about paedophiles and registered on a couple of their forums.  Some of them were suffering a lot which I could relate to because where I was then, my sexuality was viewed as evil too.

Here is something someone posted on a different forum that I think is quite clever:

As a parent myself, Good lord it's still difficult to read some of this "drop them in a hole and let them die" crap.

I seriously can't stand the lack of empathy and perspective of humanity at times...

Have you ever heard a man who fantasizes about young children (but has refused to commit act) break down? Seen his shame? Beg for help? Muffled under sobs, the words they say are difficult to listen to; their repressed desires can make you squirm. Many attempt suicide. Our sexual tendancies are near impossible to overcome. Imagine being told to stop being heterosexual - just stop it! I'm not saying that having an attraction to children compares to having a normal attraction to the opposite sex in a sense of being right or wrong, I'm just trying to get you to imagine what it would be like if society was asking you not to be attracted to the opposite sex anymore. And imagine the guilt you'd have if you knew being heterosexual was hurtful, damaging, cruel, and seen as evil. You know it's wrong - you just can't help yourself.

And those are the lucky ones - the exceptional one's that permit themselves to see the truth of their attraction, and do whatever they can to fight it. Many don't.

Many people can never see themselves as being the wrong one. When someone backs his or her car into someone else's, often that person may instinctly tried to spin or rationalize why it isn't his or her fault. Pedophiles, weaker ones (and most people, in general - no matter what group they fall into, are weak), will give into that constant, nagging attraction, and rather than deal with the guilt, they experience cognitive dissonance where they convince themselves they aren't that bad - that society's rules of morality are BS - or whatever is they tell themselves. Some pedophiles are a combination of both groups where they hate themselves and still give in the action, often blaming the victim, and in that rage, commit murder.

If a pedophile were ever to touch my child, I would want them dead. No question. But just because I'd want that, doesn't make it right. Rationality would have waved bye-bye to me. That's why murder victim's families are never on a jury. I would also ask those who would say for any guilt-ridden pedophile to kill himself to imagine if he was THEIR child, first.

My personal opinion as to why so many posters here call for the death and torture of pedophiles? Humans by nature are cruel and destructive, but that nature is kept in check and repressed by society. But when society presents us with a group of people that the consensus says we can do away with? The dams of morality break down and out pours our repressed blood thirsty desires. That's how most genocides happen.

Lolitas exist.  I certainly used to be one.

There are some boundaries though.  Here are some interviews with the woman herself:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15775812&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=polanski-raped-me-when-i-was-13----he-is-a-creep--name_page.html

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/24/polanski.geimer/

[trollette]

I am a corrections officer,  Yes there are some who feel guilty and are regretful of things they feel and do. For those I do feel empathy.  But I can assure you there are 10 times more who don't.  The things some of these people do and how proud they are of it will make you sick. 

When I first started, I was told not to look at their charges, just treat them all the same.  So I did.  Thought I got to know a few.  The nice charming ones were the child molesters.  I always thought I was a good judge of charecter until that day.  But then, if they weren't charming how could they get these children?

[Peter]

I already knew.   A 13 year old really would not understand their sexuality enough for me to consider it fully consensual.    It is fucking disgusting also as a 13 year old really isn't developed enough physically, mentally or psychologically to be sexually active.   We have enough kids having kids already in this world.  Statistically, paedophiles are less likely to be rehabilitated than murderers and rapists.   They have a rehab rate of less than 1%, so it is unlikely that he changed.   Especially since he seems to not think it was wrong lol.

I'd like to know where you get your 1% rehab figure.

Here's the official stats for sex offenders in the US:

High Rates of Recidivism?

Sex offender laws also reflect the assumption that previously convicted sex offenders are responsible for most sex crimes. Yet according to a 1997 US Department of Justice study, 87 percent of the people arrested for sex crimes were individuals who had not previously been convicted of a sex offense.36

The focus of sex offender laws on people who have previously been convicted of sex offenses may originate in the misperception that most if not all of those who have committed sex crimes in the past will do so again. Legislators, public officials, and members of the public routinely claim that people who have committed sex offenses pose a great risk to the public because they have “astronomically high” recidivism rates.37 For example, federal legislators justified the need for federal sex offender laws by asserting sex offender recidivism rates of 40 percent, 74 percent, and even 90 percent.38 Legislators rarely cite, nor are they asked for, the source and credibility of such figures. In addition, most of those who make public assertions about the recidivism rates of sex offenders take a “one-size-fits-all” approach; they do not acknowledge the marked variation in recidivism rates among offenders who have committed different kinds of sex offenses, nor the influence of other factors on recidivism.

Accurately measuring reoffense rates of people previously convicted of sex offenses is difficult, confounded by many factors.39 Some offenders claim to have committed many offenses prior or subsequent to the one for which they were arrested and convicted.40 It may be that such self-reports of long offense histories by a few offenders have led to the perception that all sex offenders have high rates of reoffending. But numerous, rigorous studies analyzing objectively verifiable data—primarily arrest and conviction records—indicate sex offender recidivism rates are far below what legislators cite and what the public believes.

The US Department of Justice tracked 9,691 male sex offenders in 15 states who were released from prison in 1994 and found that within three years only 5.3 percent of all sex offenders were arrested, and 3.5 percent convicted, for a new sex crime; 2.2 percent were rearrested for a sex offense against a child.41 Among the released child molesters (defined in the study as someone convicted of a forcible or non-forcible sex crime against a child), 3.3 percent were rearrested for a sex crime against a child.42 Sex offenders with prior histories of sex offenses had somewhat higher rates of rearrest: 7.3 percent of child molesters and 8.3 percent of all sex offenders with more than one prior conviction for a sex offense were rearrested for another sex crime.43

 

The most comprehensive study of sex offender recidivism to date consists of a meta-analysis of numerous studies yielding recidivism rates for a period of up to 15 years post-release for people convicted of such serious offenses as rape and child molesting.44 The analysis, which included over 29,000 sex offenders, found that within four to six years of release, 14 percent of all sex offenders will be arrested or convicted for a new sex crime.45 Over a 15-year period, recidivism rates for all sex offenders averaged 24 percent.46 This is not a trivial rate by any means, given the seriousness of the offenses committed. Yet it also indicates that three out of four sexually violent offenders do not reoffend. 

The study also found that recidivism rates varied markedly depending on the kind of sex crime committed. For example, recidivism within four to six years of release from prison was 13 percent for child molesters, and 24 percent for rapists. There are also differences within types of crime. For example, men who molest boys have the highest measured rates of recidivism of any sex offender.47 Within five years, their rate of sexual recidivism was 23 percent, and an additional 12 percent committed another sexual offense over the next decade.48 Thus, over a 15-year period, about one out of every three men who have molested boys will be arrested or convicted of another sex offense. 

State-specific studies have yielded similar results. For example, in Ohio, only 8 percent of former sex offenders were reincarcerated for another sex offense within a 10-year period.49 Sex offenders who returned for a new sex offense did so within a few years of release.50 Within three years of their release, 2 percent of New York inmates who had served time for a sex offense returned to prison with a conviction for another sex offense.51 Within nine years, the number was 10 percent.52

Sex offenders do not recidivate at far higher rates than other offenders, as is often believed. A federal study of prisoners released in 1994 found that 67.5 percent of all former prisoners were rearrested for a new offense within three years of their release.53  Rearrest rates varied by category of crime: 70.2 percent for those who had been in prison for robbery, 74 percent for burglary, and 41.4 percent for homicide. Released rapists had a rearrest rate of 46 percent.54 These rearrests are for any crime, not necessarily the same type of crime for which they had been in prison. Only 2.5 percent of prisoners who had been convicted of rape were arrested for another rape in the three-year post-release period.55 The other released rapists were either rearrested for something other than rape (for example, non-sexual assault or property offenses) or not rearrested at all.

Some of the public misapprehensions about the rates at which sex offenders recidivate may have originated with calculations by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) as to the relative likelihood at which released prisoners are rearrested for the same type of crime as that for which they had been in prison. In a study published in 1997 based on prisoners released in 1983, the BJS calculated that relative to other offenders, a rapist was 10.5 times more likely than other released prisoners to be rearrested for another rape.56 More recently, based on a study of prisoners released in 1994, the BJS calculated a rapist’s likelihood of being rearrested for rape as 4.2 times a non-rapist’s odds.57

However, the odds of 10.5 or 4.2 do not mean that rapists’ rates of recidivism are 10.5 or 4.2 times greater than the recidivism rates of other offenders.58 The figures are properly understood as indicating the “degree of specializing” that is apparent among many offenders.59 For example, according to the BJS, a robber is 2.7 times more likely of being rearrested for another robbery as compared to an offender who had not been serving time for a robbery.60 Specialization is not absolute; non-rapists are also rearrested on rape charges. For example, 1.2 percent of the prisoners who had been serving time for robbery were rearrested for rape.61 Indeed, people who had been serving time for rape were responsible for only 4.8 percent of the rapes committed in the three-year post-release period by all prisoners released in 1994.62

Most prisoners who are going to reoffend do so fairly soon after their release from prison.63 This is also true for sex offenders. For example, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, during the three years following release from prison in 1994, 40 percent of the rearrests of sex offenders for new sex crimes occurred in the first year.64 In Ohio, of all sex offenders who came back to prison for a new sex offense within a 10-year post-release period, one-half did so within two years, and two-thirds within three years.65 The corollary—for people who have committed sex offenses as well as other kinds of crimes—is that the longer someone remains offense-free in the community, the less likely he or she will commit another offense. For example, the 2004 meta-analysis of sex offender recidivism studies cited above indicated that an average of 20 percent of all sex offenders would be arrested or convicted for another sex offense over a 10-year period after being released into the community. But, for offenders who remained offense-free for five years, their recidivism rate for the next 10 years declined to 12 percent; for those who remained offense-free for 10 years, their recidivism over the next five years declined even further to 9 percent. After 15 years offense-free, the recidivism rate for the next five years was 4 percent.66       

A number of other factors are also correlated with recidivism. One such factor is the relationship of the victim to the offender. Offenders whose victims were within the family recidivate at a significantly lower rate than offenders whose victims were outside of the family.67 For all child molesters, the lowest reoffense rates were for those who abused family members—13 percent after 15 years living in the community.68 The age at which a sex offender commits the sex offense also has a substantial association with recidivism. Offenders older than 50 when released from prison reoffended at half the rate of those younger than 50—12 percent versus 26 percent, respectively, after 15 years.69 

Some experts who specialize in the treatment of individuals who commit sex offenses are not surprised that individuals caught for their sex crimes have a relatively low recidivism rate. As one treatment provider told Human Rights Watch, “When an individual is caught and held accountable for his behavior, he often becomes motivated to get better. His behavior is no longer a secret, and it becomes a reckoning point for him—he must decide whether he is going to change his behavior, or face the consequences.”70

[Peter]

I am a corrections officer,  Yes there are some who feel guilty and are regretful of things they feel and do. For those I do feel empathy.  But I can assure you there are 10 times more who don't.  The things some of these people do and how proud they are of it will make you sick. 

When I first started, I was told not to look at their charges, just treat them all the same.  So I did.  Thought I got to know a few.  The nice charming ones were the child molesters.  I always thought I was a good judge of charecter until that day.  But then, if they weren't charming how could they get these children?

How do you feel about the people who got caught on some bullshit charge for silly things like public urination?  What I find so scary about sex offender laws is that anyone can run afoul of them for stupid little things that would never even matter in a sane world.

Deltona's ordinance, stricter than those of the state and neighboring cities, prohibits sex offenders and sexual predators from living within 2,500 feet of a school, bus stop, day-care center, park or playground. Matamoros lives on Brady Drive near three city parks, including Dewey Boster Park and a child-care facility.

The 49-year-old took the stand before Volusia County Judge Peter Marshall in DeLand on Monday to say he never molested anyone back in 1986, but just got drunk and urinated at the side of a car along a Massachusetts street when three people passed by and saw him. He requested he not have to move his two young sons to an area with a concentrated number of sex offenders.

[Dexter Morgan]

I'm waiting for him to do a project with Woody Allen